An elitist Viennese boarding school, housed in the former summer residence of the Habsburgs, the class teacher an antiquated and despotic man. What can one learn from life there? Till Kokorda can’t do much with either the canon or the snobbish environment. His passion is gaming, specifically the real-time strategy game Age of Empires 2. After the death of his father, this hobby becomes a necessity. Unbeknownst to anyone around him, Till is an online celebrity at the age of fifteen for being the youngest top 10 player in the world. But how real is his happiness? In 2020, Till’s final year of school, things take a turn he didn’t expect – both at school as in life.

Tonio Schachinger, born in New Dehli in 1992, grew up in Nicaragua and Vienna. He studied German language and literature at the University of Vienna and language and arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. In 2023, he received the German Book Prize for his novel “Echtzeitalter